2015

We made it.  2014 was a long and sometimes difficult year.  Still, we made it through and are now relaxing away the first day of 2015.   I like new beginnings.  We had a new beginning in July when we came home but now we get a bigger one...starting the first new year in our rebuilt home.

Unfortunately, procrastination is my BFF and I still have A LOT of paperwork to do related to the fire.  I'm determined to get it done as soon as possible because I need the weight of all of it off my shoulders and mind.

I'm not one to make new years resolutions because I never keep them.  However, I do like to make goals.

My goals for the year include the following...

1. Finish all paperwork related to the fire by the end of February.
2. Get back to a strict budget.
3. Continue to help the little girl on her journey to emotional peace.
4. Support the big girl to continue the success she's achieved in the last part of 2014.
5. Figure out a way to regularly incorporate exercise into my daily routine (I can do it for short times before the little girl loses it do to such rushed and late evenings it creates for her).
6. Start a veggie garden and grow some of our own food.

I would also like to blog more regularly, which seems to be an ongoing, unmet goal.  For now, I'm setting the goal at once a week.  My goal for the blog will be to document our (my) journey to maintain a life of only what we need.  That is a challenge while living with a young hoarder but we'll do our best.  I will also chronicle just a little of our day-to-day lives to have a record for the girls.

Happy 2015 and wishing for a peaceful, healing, and healthy year for all!!!

Buying stuff...or not

I'm planning to do as much of a "no spend" October as possible.  By "no spend", I mean not spending on anything unnecessary.  I will still buy groceries and gas.  We will make one trip to our favorite restaurant an hour and a half away (this is a mental health expenditure as much as a food one...we'd have to be on the verge of bankruptcy to give it up and, fortunately, we're not.)

But, as I'm planning this, I see things coming to derail me.  The little girl is selling stuff for girl scouts and school.  The girls want halloween costumes.  I'm sure some other school stuff will come up.  Birthday party invites.  Stuff like that.  It's amazing how easy it is to get derailed.

Right now, I'll just enjoy the fact that both dogs are asleep on the floor.

Minimalism and money

Since we had the fire, I've had to buy some things...new underwear and socks, a new washer and drier, etc.  Still, I haven't bought a lot.  We were lucky enough to have enough kitchen supplies and furniture donated or loaned to us that we haven't needed to buy much for the rental.  Other than the new underwear and socks the night of the fire, I also haven't bought the girls any clothes or shoes related to the fire (that doesn't count the new riding boots I got the little girl...that was not because her old ones were fire damaged.  They were just too small.)  I have bought myself a few new clothing items but not many.

Anyway, since I started contributing to the retirement plan at work and funding a separate Roth, saving extra money has been hard with all the other necesities of daily life.

My motivation for not shopping now is that I really want to get by with the bare necessities until we move back home.  I want the girls to learn how to live with less stuff.  I want to have less stuff to clean and organize.  Plus, we don't have storage pieces of furniture...at least not much...nothing like we were used to having.

The amount of time spent cleaning and organizing while still having a neat house is tremendously decreased from our prefire life.  There are some things laying around because we don't have book shelves to put them on but our house doesn't look like a tornado hit.

Another benefit of not buying...extra money.  I get paid every two weeks.  Two weeks ago, I had $400 left over from my previous paycheck.  Yesterday was payday again and I had $300 left over.  That was after some extra eating out, a trip to the Ethiopian restaurant an hour and a half away, and buying myself a new fitbit for $140.  Had I been better about the food, I would have had lots more left over.

There are a lot of easier ways to achieve a more minimalist lifestyle.  However, since this one has been forced upon us, I'm going to enjoy the side benefits.

Saving

Right now, we have lots of gift cards to buy necesities as they come up.  Friends and family near and far were so generous to us after the fire.  The outpouring of support has been one of the most amazing things in this whole debacle.  Since we have the essentials for life right now, I'm hoping to hold on to most of them until the time comes to start furnishing our new (again) home.  And since, coupled with that, I'm hoping not to buy a lot of stuff for the rental, I'm hoping to be able to save quite a bit this year.

There's a savings plan I've seen for a couple of years now where you save $1 the first week of the year and increase that by a dollar each week so that the last week of the year you save $52, for a total of almost $1400 over the course of the year.  The problem with that for me is that you start out saving almost nothing each week and end up with big dents by the end of the year.

My plan is to save the same amount by readjust the numbers so that we're saving roughly the same amount every two weeks (my pay periods).  Of course, this will be in addition to my regular savings.  It will go to bulk up our emergency fund.  Any additional found money that comes in will be saved in addition to this savings plan.

So here's what it looks like for me...

I get paid every other Friday so each Friday, I will transfer the specified amount into my regular savings account.  I'm looking forward to watching it grow!